A Detailed Look at How Satan and Jesus Interact Throughout Scripture

In this post, you will learn how to find every place a Bible character appears in scripture, even when that person’s name isn’t specifically mentioned.

For example, last time you read Matthew 4, you may have noticed that Satan is called by different names. Initially, he’s called “the tempter” in verse 3, the “devil” in verses 5 and 7, and “Satan” in verse 10. Why did Matthew use these different names throughout the story?

I’ll leave the answer up to you and your own work of interpretation, but let’s explore the topic a bit more because Matthew’s use of multiple names brings up an interesting point. If you are searching the Bible for a person, how do you make sure all references to them appear in your results if they are called by different names?

Often times the more important a person is to a particular biblical story, the more names the Bible uses. For example, the Bible uses multiple names for Abraham, Moses, and David. Jesus has even more names. Pronouns make it even more difficult because they need context to make them specific.

With Logos, you can find every reference to a biblical character with ease, regardless of the name or pronoun used in a specific text.

*Prefer video? Scroll down to see Person Search in action.

Right click on “tempter” and select Satan: Person. From the left hand side of the context menu you can run a Factbook report, look for maps associated with Satan, and open Bible dictionaries straight to articles on this character. Choose Search: this resource (inline). Choosing this option converts our Bible into a concordance with all of the rich functionality you’ve seen in action throughout this course. Add another person to our search by typing NEAR (in all caps) (enclosed in angle brackets) and pressing enter. This limits your results further. If 200 results is more than you want, you can continue to narrow your search through additional syntax.

Within your results, notice a couple of things. First, your results include a lot of prepositions. The only way to know to whom a preposition refers is by reading the context, and Logos has done that for you. Also notice, that Logos has included different names of the two persons we searched for.

Let’s look through our results. In Matthew 6:13, very soon after the temptation, Jesus prays to His Father that He would deliver Jesus and His followers from the evil one. In 2 Corinthians 6:15, Paul highlights the immense distinction between Jesus and Satan. It’s interesting that he uses the name Belial since it’s not a common name for Satan in the Bible. Hebrews 2:14 and 1 John 3:8 speak of Jesus’ destruction of Satan and our salvation as the reason for the incarnation. Revelation 12:10-11 sums up the ultimate conclusion of Jesus and Satan’s relationship. Christ will throw him down.

In Matthew 4, we’ve seen Satan’s attempt to conquer Christ by offering Him things that are rightfully His. We recognize from our search, that later in the history of redemption, Jesus conquers Satan righteously with God’s blessing and in God’s way. Add this to your notes file along with some of the references we’ve seen.

See how Logos Cloud’s Person search will help you study the Bible

Learn more in the Logos Cloud 27-day Bible study challenge

This article was created using content from the Logos Cloud 27-day Bible study challenge. The Logos Cloud 27-day Bible study challenge is composed of short videos, created for you to watch one video a day for 27 days.

Each video teaches new Logos Cloud skills that will help you:

Find answers to your questions about the Bible

Understand meanings of passages and words in Scripture

Learn about biblical people, places, and events

Share biblical insights using rich visuals and stunning videos

… and so much more!

And it won’t take long! Each video is less than five minutes in length, and you’ll finish the course in less than one month with a deeper understanding of Matthew 4 and how to study the Bible.